


Yellow Flame in the Dark

by Zdenka



Category: Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen, Writing rainbow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24465292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: A god finds a leaping fire amidst the cold ice and brings it home. (Surely his blood-brother must have known that it would end like this?)
Relationships: Loki & Odin (Norse Religion & Lore)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10
Collections: Writing Rainbow Make Up Round, Writing Rainbow Yellow





	Yellow Flame in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruis/gifts).



Snow and ice stretched around him on all sides; the air was very cold, but he did not feel it. He was a whirling light, sparking with red and gold, growing taller or shorter at his own whim. He leapt and he danced along the ice, and his countless shadow-children danced with him.

He became aware of a presence where none should be and stopped abruptly. His children danced on a little longer and then scurried to gather around his feet. There was a stranger, wrapped in a dark cloak and leaning on a tall staff, a single bright eye peering out from under the rim of his battered hat. The stranger looked at him with his piercing eye for a long moment, then spoke aloud and named him.

He disliked being named; it was a form of binding, especially when spoken with authority. He shone brighter and brighter, trying to make the stranger shut his single eye against the light. But the stranger did not. It was intriguing, even charming, the way he did not flinch from the heat or turn his face from the smoke.

And then the newly-named one knew who the stranger was. "You don't belong here," he said.

"I walk where I must," said the other. His voice was roughened by the cold and surprisingly deep. He held out his hand. "Come with me, and be my brother."

He slid into a form that had hands, seeing the other's eye widen slightly for all that he pretended otherwise, and caught the other's hand in his own. "More for me to burn there," he tossed back, smiling a little with a bright crooked smile.

"You will warm my hearth and the hearths of men, and you will not burn me or my kin."

"Not yet," he said and laughed. They made their pact, and he went from that place with the blood of a god singing in his veins.

There were days and years when he lounged at his ease in his brother's hall, matching him cup for cup of honeyed mead, and burned only as brightly as they cared to see. There would be time, he thought lazily. All the time of all the thread on the Norns' spindle, all the time of every leaf on the Great Ash Tree. The spit turned on the hearth, roasting the pig that was slaughtered every day and always came back to life again, and the mead was ever-flowing. That hall is dust and ashes now, of course. He doesn’t know what happened to the pig.

And there came a time when it wasn’t enough, when he felt sparks waiting under his skin, when the words of his tongue grew sharper and more bitter. His blood-brother, Hlidskjalf’s master, giver of food to wolves and ravens, he who saw so much—surely he must have known?

When they dragged him out of Aegir’s feast hall, he pulled the light and heat from the torches along with him as a final act of defiance. He was still drunk and laughing. But if the angry guests beat him that would spoil the joke, so he turned slippery and wriggling, leaping away from them and into the river before they could blink. He flicked a powerful tail, driving himself through the water. Hands weren't always the most useful, when it came down to it.

(Wings, though—wings were a delight. The wings of a hawk, to soar and swoop and catch; the wings of a fly, to carry him busy and buzzing wherever he liked. When they finally caught him and bound him, forcing him into one form, it briefly crossed his mind that he would miss having wings.)

He was tied with cold bonds, the snake dangling over his face. It hissed at him. He bared his own fangs and hissed back. There was nowhere for him to go; he closed his eyes and slipped away like a fish again, backwards and forwards, travelling the road of thought which is swifter than fire, while his body remained bound. If he could slip away far enough and go back, could he even slip out of his name, undo his own choice? Would he? 

No, foolish to think of it. A fire didn’t give back what it had eaten, no matter how precious or dear it was. He licked his lips, remembering the taste of Baldur’s funeral pyre, heavy with gold and salt tears. (Not his tears, though; never his.)

The woman stood near him in the dark, silent and steadfast, holding her bowl aloft. He had never been patient, but he would wait. Until the golden cock crowed in Asgard and the black cock crowed in Hel. When all bonds broke, when the ash-tree shattered. And then—

Much later, he walks through the new grass where the War-god's hall used to stand. His foot kicks against something: a golden game-piece. It shines in the sunlight as he holds it up and as he tosses it away from him, a shining arc ending in the grass. He could burn it all again, but it hardly seems worth the trouble. And as he stands there, it no longer seems worth the trouble of having hands, or standing on feet; he changes, twisting around himself, and he is once more a flickering fire. He goes to the edge and leaps, his flames streaming out behind him. Wherever he lands, there will be a new world for him to light, and something new for him to burn.


End file.
